


Dinner Invitations and Mob-Related Shenaningans

by Demia



Series: Femslash Project 1 - Hauntings [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Rape, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Roxy Lalonde/Porrim Maryam, Non-Graphic Violence, Parental Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Sex Talk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:02:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demia/pseuds/Demia
Summary: Feferi keeps slapping things (and people), Terezi tries her best to be as chill a sthey come, and Vriska gets a crush on her best friend's sister. Which goes completely against the sis code. 
On a more work-related note, being in-clade with the mob boss is not as funny as it sounds.





	

Are you ready to have a mental breakdown, yet?

y would I b---E?

b---E…   
I'm afraid we can't be friends anymore, Meens. I can't accept this as a legit typing quirk.

glub off strider  
I got things to do an youre wastin my tim---E

Wait.

what?

I have bad news. From Feferi. 

fuck bad news I dun need em

She asked us to speak with Maryam.

You throw your phone on the other side of the room and it collides prettily against the wall. 

“Also, your brother is putting the moves on me. It's creepy.” Dirk, the asshole, appears just behind you, and you growl in your throat as you jump out of your skin. 

“Go die,” you hiss at him. Mituna, standing in the doorway, lets out his ugly laughter. “Tuna! What did I say about mackerel on my friends?”

His laughter gets louder and he starts coughing like a damn idiot and you want to punch him in the face.  
“What?” he asks, breathless.  
You sigh, wiping at your eyes. 

“Putting the moves on 'em. Flirtin.” 

“Meens,” Dirk calls you, and he has his arms crossed. 

“What?”

“Call your sister.”

“Glub off. I'm not roping Maryam into this,” you refuse.  
Dirk sigh and you let him. He can sigh all he wants, it's not your fault Feferi has a leash wrapped around his neck. 

“Please? For me?” he asks, turning his voice into honey and you want to punch him too.

“I said glub off. Three times already.”

“Only three?” Mituna says, and breaks own into laughter again.  
You want to die. 

It's time to die already and it's only one in the afternoon.  
“I'm going to the kitchen,” you tell them both, “And if you try and follow me I will throw a fork at you.”

They are somewhat smart and they leave you alone.  
Pity.

*

Your phone rings just as you're about to take the cake out of the oven, and you curse at it and let it ring. Nothing will make you burn a cake.  
Stress baking would be a moot point if you were to ruin your creations, after all. Failure stresses you out. 

The only problem is, the caller keeps calling. They don't stop, and if once you had loved the song sprouting from your phone's speakers, you're starting to hate it a little bit more every second it fills your kitchen.

“Answer your damn phone!” Mituna screams at you, pounding on the door. Thankfully, it's locked, or he would feel entitled to enter and to accept the call himself. You don't know who's calling and you don't want to subject them to Mituna's fury. Even if they somewhat deserve it.

“Go awave!” you scream back, letting your cake cool down on the rack and finally looking towards the damned device. 

The caller ID says _Little Beach_.  
You sigh, long and deep, and accept the call. 

“Coddamnit Meenah!” Feferi yells at you. “I've been calling for an hour!”

“I noticed, sis. What do you know, I was busy having a life. You want somefin?” you ask her, hoping this will be short and it won't include any instance of the names Porrim or Maryam. 

You're definitely not in the mood for that.

“Nah, just been calling like a damn thirsty beach because, you know?” she spits out, and you have to laugh at her irritation.

“C'mon, li'l sis, tell me what you want so I can go back to my cake. It don't decorate itself, you know?”

“Your best frond says you're not in the mood to contact the Virgin Mother, yet.” You let out a chuckle at her words and Feferi pauses in her speech for a moment. When you add nothing, she goes on, “I thought we could discuss it over dinner. I haven't seen you none, lately.”

“Yeah. Still got a life of my own. School, work, friends. I don't have all the damn time in the world.”

“Not asking all your damn time, Meenah. Just dinner. You can do dinner, can't you? I won't even foul your house with my presence. You're invited in my apartment, as long as you behave,” Feferi says, and she might be joking a little, or maybe not, anyway, she sounds like your mother and you hate her for it. 

“Yeah, yeah. I'll bewave,” you agree. Mostly because Feferi is known to hold grudges like no one else and you don't really want to spend the next three years without ever hearing form her. “If I decide to come.”

~*~

Terezi invades your room. It's not an unusual event by any mean, and lately it doesn't even irritate you too much.  
She is a cool girl. She minds her own business, mostly, and she is less useless than most human beings you've met in your life. 

Above all, she doesn't require your complete attention all the time. Only some of it. Like now.

“Have you've ever met Peixes Prime?” she asks, running her open palms on your blankets. You can't even blame her, it's silk.  
The good kind.  
The very good kind. 

Feferi has bought them for you. 

“Like… Fef's mother? Nah. She's on her death bed. Not fit to meet with anyone. Let alone someone like me.”

“No,” she snaps, throwing a pillow at you, she almost fire in the right direction. “Her older sister I mean. Meenah. AKA Peixes Prime. Who even gives a shit about her mother?”

“Umm.” 

Meenah Peixes. 

You lick your lips and look at Terezi. She is forgoing her glasses again, the scars around her eyes are so awful you want to puke your organs all over her, but you don't say it out loud.  
She is lucky enough that she will never have to see them at all, why make her all self-conscious about something she wouldn't be able to change anyway? 

“That a yes, Serket?”

“Maybe. What I know of Meenah is a silhouette and a terrible singing voice. That's all I got from my very brief and very top secret stay at Feferi's house.”

“Top secret, uh? I like how that sounds,” she mutters, mostly to herself even if you can hear her. “You're the best Serket,” she says, and you shrug to yourself. It's not like you are any good at understanding normal people, let alone freaks like Terezi. 

She gets up not a full minute later, caressing the wall and your nightstand to relocate herself, and then she sways to the door.  
“You always find me something fun to do,” she tells you, cackling under her breath. 

*

“You didn't tell me your sister was coming.”  
Feferi looks up at you, and then at Terezi, and there is a lot of exasperated confusion on her pretty face. 

“No, I didn't. Good job at finding out, though. Trying out for the blue vests?” Feferi asks, crossing her arms on the table and plopping her round chin on her forearms. She is still looking at you. 

“Yeah. You know they're my heroes and best friends.”  
A lucky guess, thankfully, and Terezi is grinning in your direction. She loves smart people, and you love to be smart.

“Mine too. You think they'll take me?” Terezi adds, and you cant help but think this conversation is getting a lot weirder than you had anticipated. 

What turn was taken wrong and who was driving? 

“Play your disability card right and they will have a desk for you and all the documents printed in Braille,” Feferi says, still looking and not a single trace of a smile on her full lips.

Feferi always smiles when she gets home. 

“I can't read Braille,” Terezi says, full deadpan. It's actually the truth, and you know it because she has told you, but Feferi… You're not sure she knows. You're not sure she's _supposed_ to. 

“I'm sure they would give you a personal reader, then. If you ask nicely.”

“Oi,” you call out, slapping a hand in front of Feferi. She looks weird and she is making you antsy with her mood.  
She is not supposed to look like this, to speak like this, to act like this.  
Feferi is bubbly and happy and full of smiles. “Did something happen at work?”

“No,” she says, shrugging, lower lip pursued, “did somefin happen here?”

“No,” Terezi says, and for a moment you flinch at her. You want to go back to when it was only you and Feferi living here, to when everything was simpler and you didn't have to worry about anything at all–

You could spend your days lounging around the house or even just laying in your bed, and no one would know. 

“I'm going to sleep.” Feferi stands up from the table and your eyes jump to the kitchen. Feferi always cooks when she comes home. 

“Something did happen,” you say.  
You're not trying to call her a liar, and you see the spike of ire in her warm eyes, but something obviously set her off and you care so much about her, you can't just let it go.

“I'm going to sleep, Vriska. Order yourself takeout or whatever.”

Terezi waits till the room is empty and the door to Feferi's room is closed before speaking, “Investigation it is,” she says, cackling once again.  
She cackles for everything, though, you're getting pretty used to it. 

~*~

“What do you think?” Lalonde asks, spinning twice in front of you, her too damn long skirt twirling around her skinny legs. This girl, you think, needs to put some meat on her bones.

“Waste of time,” you say, because it's what you think.  
If it wasn't for Dirk begging you on his knees – almost – you would have never agreed to this shopping outing with Lalonde.  
She is like, your least favorite person after Mituna, to spend your time with.

“About the dress, Meenah,” she says, huffing and puffing at you, the face of a woman ready to punch you. At least she is no pushover. 

“You look like a fucking nun, Lalonde. I wouldn't bang you for money.”

“Thank god,” she says, poking her tongue out at you. “I have to meet my aunt, not go clubbing.”

“Your aunt is a nun?”

“My aunt is a piece of shit. And I don't want to look _promiscuous_.”

“Promiscuous is a thing, but you look like a damn doll. Those creepy little fuckers with blond curls and dresses that no self-loving human would ever wear,” you say, shaking your head at her. The dress she has chosen has a button up corset, and she has closed all her buttons. All of 'em, to her throat. You wonder if she's breathing at all. 

“You choose, then,” she spits out at you, and then, not even a second later, she shakes her head and grins, “Just kidding, I don't trust your fashion sense.”

“Fuck you.” You snap a photo of her with your phone and promptly send it to Maryam.  
A moment later, you phone rings.

“Pass over the phone, Meenah,” Porrim orders you, a bite in her voice you've haven't heard in a while.

“For you, Lalonde,” you say, placing the phone in her hands. She glares at you as if you've killed one of her three-hundred cats, and takes the call. 

“What the fuck.” You hear Porrim scream.  
The call goes on for a few minutes at most, and when Lalonde gives you the phone back, she is subdued and resentful. 

“She is coming,” she says. “Thank you for making this a state affair, _Meenah_.”

*

You leave the girls to their dresses and to their schooling in fashion. Lalonde looks at you as you leave, and you know she will take her revenge, sooner or later, but you also know she is grateful, to some extent.  
There's no one better than Porrim Maryam to help with shopping, and she's much more patient than you could ever hope to be. 

And, most importantly, Roxy Lalonde is part of that group of people who can't help being a bashful mess of stutters whenever Porrim shows up.  
She should be nothing but grateful for your immense generosity, really.

“Meenah!” someone yells, and you have barely the time to turn around before a body collides against yours, sending you spiraling to the ground.  
You look up, ready to bite the skin off their face. 

“Hello, Meenah!” Meulin Leijon screams in your face, grinning like the maniac she is.

“Turn your damn hearing aid on, Leijon,” you say, and try and sign it too, but she is kind of pinning you to the ground right now, and your arms and hands are a little unavailable.  
Thank god she can read your lips, and she flips the aid on. 

“Sorry, sorry. _My oh god_ , I'm so happy to see you!” she says, wrapping her arms around your waist and squeezing the life out of you. The only thing you can do is groaning like a dying woman. “Her Radiance sent me,” she whispers in your ear, and you already knew that, you're not _stupid_.

Meulin never shows her face unless Feferi wants something from you. And you're pretty sure she is not here to talk about that dinner invitation. 

“What does she want?” you ask, and you already know and Meulin knows you know. She gives you this look that speaks to your soul.  
It's saying _don't be a dumb bitch_.

She gets on her feet and pulls you up, her arms look weak and chubby but she has more strength than you could possibly hope for, and she almost sends you flying with your face on the sidewalk. 

“Easy girl,” you hiss, punching her in the shoulders. She chuckles at you.

“Fef wants you to say hi to Maryam for her,” Meulin says, putting on a smile that chills your bones. 

“No can do. I just left her to Lalonde. You should go say hi your damn self.”

“Rude. It's not exactly optional. You know how Fef gets…” she tilts her head to the side and mimics a little gun with her fingers, shaking it around. You sigh at her, rolling your eyes.

“Not with me, gill. You know she's fucking lenient with her big sis. Threat tactics get a zero this round.”

“Don't be a dick. She has a soft spot, but it won't last forever.” Leijon winks at you and kisses the air in your direction before she happily scampers away to do her shady job of the day. 

You would be much more pissed if Feferi didn't hire all this eye-candy to do her deeds, really. 

Every time you refuse her something, she sends some nice pieces of ass to ogle at.  
That doesn't actually help changing your mind.

~*~

The smarter thing to do would be calling Crocker.  
Sadly, she has a bit of a grudge against you since the last time she has been in the apartment and you've harassed – too strong a word, if you may state your opinion about it – her _live in best friend_.

Crocker surely knows what's going on, and she's usually not the type to keep information from you. Not when they impact on Feferi's life. 

“Wakey wakey Serket! The morn has arrived!” Terezi screeches outside your door. It's open, but she is smart enough not to enter. 

“Serket is awake, Pyrope,” you tell her, trying for a chipper voice and still falling on your snarky tone. It's nature to you, these days. 

“I say, we make breakfast for the boss. Cheer her up all right,” she propose, and you have to admit it's a neat idea, even if you're both useless when it comes to cooking.  
A few scrambled eggs and toast are not so difficult to make right?

*

Wrong.  
Completely fucking wrong.  
You've not been more wrong in your life. 

Feferi is staring at the both of you with a desperation in her eyes that you fear is infectious.

“You could at least appreciate the thought?” Terezi offers, shrugging her large shoulders. 

“I would if you were to clean up the mess. Since I know you both like the back of my hands, no. I can't appreciate the thought. You're now officially banned from my kitchen. I can't believe it wasn't obvious till now.” 

“Wow, sorry!?” you spit out, throwing the dish cloth on the stove and stomping out the kitchen. You hear Terezi say something or other, laid back and uncaring as usual, but your blood is boiling under your skin and you know you can't take criticism. It's one of your biggest flaws. 

Not that knowing it makes any difference. 

Guess who 8eing a 8itch........

Miss Peixes, perhaps?  
I have it on good authority that she is not in the best of moods, lately.   
You could probably go easy on her.

Fuck that!!!!!!!!

That's a lot of exclamation points, Serket.

You don't say? I won't cut her s8me slack! N8 w8y  
She's 8eing unnecessarily 8itchy since yesterday n8 and I can't take it anym8re.   
I took time 8ut of my own routine to ask her if s8mething was wrong, you kn8w?!?!?!?!

And what did she say?

What do you th8nk????????

I think you're being exceptionally irritable.  Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, mind you, not everything needs to impact your life?

What

Her Radiance is not feeling well and you're more interested in how you feel about it than about her. She is your friend, or have you forgotten about that?

Ok, you know what, Lalonde? Fuck you. I don't have to listen to th8s 8ullshit! Go psych8analyze some8ne else!!!!!!!!  
I w8s just looking for s8me supp8rt!

Apologies if I didn't manage to be supportive. I just think you should be more considerate of others and their feelings.

Like you are?

Ouch. Sick burn. How will I ever recover?

You drop your phone on the bed and leave it there.  
Rose Lalonde is not the best person to contact when you're feeling down. This, you should have realized a long time ago. 

Sadly, she is possibly the only one you can talk to.  
Terezi is too busy giving no fucks at all about nothing and reveling in the new-found safety of her life; Feferi is currently the reason of your awful mood; Busybody Maryam is not speaking to you for an undetermined amount of time. 

I Won't Speak With You Until You Apologize, she has said in her last message, but you don't currently feel like apologizing for anything. 

Same goes for Crocker, that keeps being the best choice out of all of them. 

*

One really real truth is, you're not used to living together with other people.  
Terezi occupies the common area of the house all the time, laying on a couch here or there, sitting at the kitchen table, sometimes invading your room or insisting that you have to share hers for a while. 

You're not used to the constant presence of someone else.  
When it was only Feferi with you, or better, you with her, you had to get used to her presence only in the evenings, and not every day at that, and that was okay with you, considering you don't want to spend the nights alone. 

But now…  
It's been three days and Feferi has not left her room once.  
You have to admit, at least to yourself, that you're getting worried. 

She is prone to depression, you've known this for a long time, but short of calling her brother to ask him what she usually does when she gets so down she can't come back home, you don't know what to do. 

And really, there are a lot of things you would prefer doing that to call Sollux Captor. The guy has the magical ability to piss you off like no one else.

~*~

“I think it's time for that dinner to take place,” Dirk tells you, occupying all the space in your living room.  
He doesn't even live here, damn him. 

You half hop away from a bunch of sparkling wires, and you sit down in the only empty spot next to him. 

“Why? You know somefin that I don't?” It's less a question and more an accusation, honestly, but he doesn't mind. 

“As usual.”  
He works for a few more minutes, and you know him well enough to recognize when he is only being a perfectionist never content with his work and when he actually has something to fix, so you leave him alone.  
“Her Radiance has taken a vow of solitude, it seems. Not a few people want you to intervene, as you're the only one who can reach her. You still have the keys to her apartment, don't you?”

“What makes you think I had them in the first plaice?” you spit out at him, consider punching his shoulder, realize he's holding a smoldering thing. That thing with the flame. The thing to seal pieces of metal together. You have no idea what that thing is called, really. 

“It's that or you're collared, and I don't think you're collared because you're all but an s-type,” he says, his eyes glinting at you. You know they are, even under the mask and the glasses. 

He is being a cheeky piece of shit and you do punch him, but lightly enough that he doesn't lose his grip on the Flame Thing.

“You're such a bass,” you tell him.  
He nods and hums, and you get up because it's time for stress baking part a thousand.

Since you've made friends with him, your stress baking has reached unbelievable levels, and you've started gifting baked goods to everyone whose name you even vaguely remember. 

That dude has a surname that starts with Z, he deserves a batch of muffins.  
That lady has a nice ass and you think her name's Lacy, she gets a beautifully decorated cake.  
And your number. 

And so on and so forth.  
More than anything, it's because you have no space and not enough mouths to feed in your house at any given time. 

This time, though, you're going to bake something for Feferi and her little, troubled creatures. 

“I'm getting married!” Mituna screams from the hallway, and Dirk yelps a moment later, and you don't want to know what's going on so you just… Keep weighting the flour you need and mix it with sugar and cocoa and you pretend you can't hear your brother babbling on and on about his girlfriend and some hypothetical marriage.

It's the fifth time this week, already.  
You're tired. 

“Goddamn, Meenah,” Dirk hisses, entering the kitchen. He has chocolate ganache all over his face.  
You're pretty sure Mituna has splattered some cake on it. 

“How is it my fault, buoy?” you ask. 

“You gave him the cake!” Dirk spits out, reaching the sink on restless feet and turning the water on as much as it can go. 

“He is damn capable of serving himself a slice of cake! I only made it. That's my sin. Making you all ungrateful fuckers some delicious cake.”  
You mix the batter with as much strength as you can muster, and Dirk scoffs, but he keeps his distance. 

*

You want to dress pretty, forcing Dirk to attend to you hand and foot in revenge for the disastrous shopping adventure with Lalonde. 

He looks to the wall as you change cloth after cloth, and he moans the unfairness of it all, but you don't give a fuck. 

“Mind telling me why you are obsessing so much over this?” he asks after you throw away the sixteenth garb. 

“I've heard her roomies are cute, I wanna make a good impression.” You try on a fuchsia thing. You can't call it a dress. The skirt is inappropriately short, riding up your thighs and making your hips look amazing. It has a net corset.  
“This,” you say, turning to him and showing off your dangerously magnificent curves. 

He gives you a moment of attention and his eyes go wide, his cheeks pink. “Put a fucking bra on!” He screams covering his face with both hands and rambling under his breath about your nipples, of all things.  
“You absolutely cant go to your sister looking like that. Why did you even buy that thing!?”

“One, bras are useless to me. Porrim and peeps like her, sure, they can't go without for obvious reasons. Me? I'm an A cup, Strider. I don't need no glubbing support. I have nofin that needs to be supported.”  
He is not amused by your explanation, and stubbornly refuses to look at you. You think he is a too sensitive big baby. It's just nipples. He has those too, you're sure. “Two, I wasn't planning to visit Fef in this. This is for clubbin, obviously. God, you know jack shit about clothes. Now I see why you set me up to go with Ro-Lal. Anemonewave, I was just about to suggest you take me dancing in this, some night, but since you're being such a pissbaby, I think I will ask my gill fronds to come with me. They don't flip out for a nipple or two.” 

Dirk is still not amused by you, but after ten years of friendship you've come to expect that.  
You stuck with him exactly because he doesn't let himself be swayed. 

You leave him to his almost silent tantrum and fish out another pink cloth from the pile on your floor.  
Oh, this skirt is adorable. Why haven't you ever worn it, again?  
Porrim herself has made this for you, and it fits like a glove. It's pretty innocent too, elegant and sensual in just the right way. 

Porrim has indeed a way with clothes, you envy her.  
You snap a pic of yourself in the mirror and send it to her. 

Nice bo+o+bs she answers. And after a moment,  I remember that skirt. Any particular reaso+n why I've never seen it o+n yo+u?

“See,” you tell Dirk, typing an essay of half-assed apologies. “She doesn't flip the fuck out for my boobs.” 

“She is a lesbian,” Dirk spits out, crossing his arms and going back to staring at the wall. It's progress, at least. 

“So what. It's just flesh. Your buoys have nipples too. And not only gills have boobs, by the wave.” 

“I know that,” he argues, “and if you were a boy and those were a boy's breasts, I would have no problem with them.”  
  
“You're a weird chum,” you tell him.  
  
Porrim sends you a picture of herself, delectable in her outfit for tonight. In the background you can see a very familiar head of blonde and pink hair. 

you FUCK--ED LALOND—E??????  
gill... wave to go!  
also you look )(OT AS )(--ELL

I did no+ such thing. She needed a lesso+n in appro+priate attire and I canno+t fo+r the life o+f me leave such a beautiful lady igno+rant   
We might have gro+ped each o+ther a little  
Also+ had o+ne o+r two+ slo+ppy makeo+uts sessio+ns

)(-ELL Y--ES! Mad props to you Maryam!!! 

“Are you going to stand there topless all day or what?” Dirk snaps, effectively making you jump and drop your phone. Thankfully, the carpet soften the impact and your screen remains unbroken. 

Meenah one hundred, gravity zero. 

“Clam down, Strider. I'm looking for a shirt. So you can stop that heart attack from coming.”  
  
“Is your phone doubling as a wardrobe now? CrockerCorp surely is expanding in innovative technology these days…” 

“Glub off, Porrim sent a pic and your precious sister was in it, so I had to congratulate her on the laid,” you say, smirking at him even if he can't see you. 

“Shut up. She did not,” he blurts, mouth not closing after the words. He just stares at the wall, unmoving, for a while.

“She didn't, no. But sloppy makeouts did happen. Also, groping.” 

He groans and closes his eyes. “Meenah,” he whines, “I don't want to know deets of my sister's sexcapades. You overshare. That's your problem, Peixes. You're a compulsive oversharer and I am damn tired of having to hear all the gossips you sprout. And put a fucking shirt on, I'm tired of staring at this wall.” 

“Then stop,” you say, and unbury the shirt you were looking for. The one Porrim had suggested you to wear with the skirt the day she had given it to you.  
Black and fuchsia, a tank top that fits loosely around your body, but not enough to be casual. “There. I'm decent now you can stop your wall-watching.” 

~*~

“Do me a favor.” 

“No,” Rose answers, and you can almost see her, sitting at her desk, typing away at her overcomplicated book, phone in between her shoulder and ear, refusing you only because it's more fun that way. 

“Come on. Please,” you force yourself to say. 

“Oh, Serket, you're going to make me cry,” she snarks, and her typing gets so aggressive you can hear it perfectly. “What do you want?”

“Call Crocker. Ask her how to fix Fef.” It's obvious now that you have to forfeit. You're not equipped to help your best friend in the entire world.

It hurts more than you would like to admit. 

“Her Radiance is not fixable. She is a person, and she can be comforted, at most, but not fixed,” Rose says, barks. 

“Can it, Lalonde. You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Can you leave the snark somewhere else for now? I have a real problem here,” you whine, but just a little, and just because Rose is being difficult. 

She gets her rocks off being difficult, you think. 

“Yes, you're the only human being with a real problem, obviously. When is the world not revolving around Vriska Serket and her problems?”

You think she's crying.  
Oh, well, Rose is a troubled girl, you already knew that, what you don't know is if you should ask her about it or if you should just pretend like nothing is happening. With Rose Lalonde, the right thing to do is never clear.

“So…” you mumble, your brain is going a mile a minute, trying to find the least destructive way to inquire about her emotional state, and in the end, following your heart as your prone to do, you say fuck it to everything that is mental machination. “Why are you crying?” 

“Why do you suppose it is any of your fucking business?” she asks, her voice cracking once, twice, five times in total, and you kinda want to take her away form her home, adopt her into your own makeshift family, convince Feferi to take her in, even if Rose's problems are not and have never been caused by CrockerCorp and its shady twin company. 

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you're my friend?” you say, and you do your best to sound snappish and concerned and fond all at the same time, because you still have a reputation to your name that you can't let down for even a second. And Rose knows. Rose is just like you.  
Rose understands. 

“What's this? A sincere expression of affection?”

“Can it. Talk to me about your problems. I'm here and currently unoccupied. Except for the fact that I still need you to contact Crocker.”  
You have too many friends in need of something, really, and you don't know how to help any of them in a useful way.

“I already wrote to her. She said she has all under control,” Rose tells you.  
She is a bitch, yes, but she is a pragmatic bitch, and you should have known she wouldn't have left Feferi all alone and suffering when she had the possibility of helping right in front of her.  
You tend to underestimate her empathy, sometimes, and this is the one flaw you're actually pretty okay with acknowledging. 

“Alright, now onto your problems. Spill.”

“Why should I? I did what you asked, can't you leave me alone?”

“Friends, Lalonde. I already–”

“Yes,” she interrupts, a heavy sigh following and you bite your tongue and let her speak. She always takes a long time to open up. “I find myself in the middle of some unfortunate… Familial turbulence. Nothing you can actually help with, I'm afraid.”

“Is it your mother again?” you ask.  
Rose has told you time and time again not to speak of things you know shit about, but the thing is, you know a lot about her situation. She is not the only one with a piece of shit mother, and you don't want to disclose your disgusting upbringing to her, but at the same time you want her to know that you do understand.

It's a mess of a situation. 

“That, yes. And my… father? I suppose he is my father, all considered. Well, he came back into the picture, and he is just as bad as I suspected.”

Well.

Shit.

Now you want her out of that house even quicker than usual.  
You have to talk some sense into Feferi.  
You have to. 

*

You're going to have a guest tonight.

Don't care. Go pick up Rose and mini-Strider, they c8n't stay in the house!!!!!!!!

Don't tell me what to do, Serket. You're not my boss. 

I am their friends, th8ugh and I kn8w you care 8out them too. They're y8ur family.

Yes, they are. And we are taking care of the situation. Stay out of it, it doesn't concern you at all.   
You are going to have a guest, as I said, and I suggest you make the apartment look presentable, or she's going to flip her shit and yours too.   
Trust me, you don't want to make her angry.   
Or, God forbid, concerned.

It is my 8us8ness!!!!!!!!  
I hate you pe8ple and y8ur ina8ility to und8rstand simpl8 concepts s8ch as friendsh8p

Good to know.   
She'll be there at seven.  
Bye.

And with that, Dirk Strider – asshole extraordinaire – blocks you from responding.  
Because he's such a mature guy. 

“What are you doing?” Terezi drawls, leaning against your door-frame. 

“Nothing useful,” you spit out at her, and she grins like Christmas come early. She has forgone her glasses again, damn her, and you're forced to see the battleground that is her face. “We have to tidy up a little, a guest is coming.”

“A guest?” she asks, and for a moment it's all good and fine, but after that her grin disappears and her eyes widen impossibly and you're not equipped to take care of anyone, let alone Pyrope and her weird, unspecified triggers. 

“Fef's sister. Or Crocker, maybe. Or both,” you say, and you hope it's enough to placate her.  
As far as you know, Terezi is terrified of men and boys, and whomever identifies as such at least half the time.  
You don't know the specifics, because Feferi has forbidden you to pry about it, but you think she was involved with the Makara deal and if it actually is so, you're much better off not knowing anything at all. 

“Oh,” she whispers, “Oh, yeah, right. Fef's sister. That's cool.”  
She shakes her head twice, to clear it, and then she gives you a pale impression of a smile. 

“Come here,” you bark, because her knees are trembling and you have to take care of her, now that Feferi is unavailable.  
She reaches your bed without falling face-first on the floor, and you let her take as much space as she wants as she curls up around you. 

You're a good friend, you tell yourself, but you're not sure how much you believe it.

~*~

You untie the fuchsia bow at your neck and use the key for the second time in the three years you've had it.  
It slips in the lock with no problem. 

Feferi has chosen a good part of town to have her little apartment-project, and you're glad no one has ever tried to trespass. 

You're glad she and her girls are safe. 

And even if she is not in the best of moods, lately, and maybe her depression has been kicking in more than usual, and she feels like shit, she is still safe and sound and alive, which is more than you could have assuredly said of her a few years ago. 

You enter the apartment like you own it.  
In a way, you do. Half of it, at the very least.  
You did help Feferi pay for it. 

“Hey, are you Peixes Prime?”  
You suppose the girl asking the question is Terezi Pyrope, the blind roomie, because she's wearing red glasses and her clothes are an awful combinations of non complementary colors.  
Porrim would die.  
Straight up expire, her soul leaving her body forever, if she could see this. 

“In the flesh, yeah. You Pyrope, gill?” you ask, offering your hand for her to shake and then taking it back to your side. 

Blind roomie, right. 

“Yes ma'am. Terezi Pyrope.” She salutes in perfect military fashion and you laugh, slapping her shoulder. The lady is sturdy. “Vriska has ordered pizza for dinner. Feferi said to get anchovies for you too, is that alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. Where's my baby sister? I was told she needed an intervention stat.”

A girl – Serket, you guess – pokes her head into the living room.  
Her spectacles make her look like a super nerd, and she has so much hair.  
So much fucking hair, you think she needs two bottles of conditioner every time she washes it.  
“Are you Meenah?” she asks. 

“Yes. And you're Vriska, nice to meet ya, I need to go speak to Fef.” She grimaces at your curtness, but you couldn't give any less of a fuck. 

You're here for one reason and one reason only. To get Feferi out of her bed and out of her room and out of her depression.  


*

Feferi's room is dark and stinks of sadness, just like you feared. She is a miserable cocoon of blankets in the middle of her queen size bed, and you jump right on top of her and relish in her yelp. 

“Rise and shine, you little beach!” you yell in her ear, tearing the covers off her body and watching her squirm like mad trying to get them back. “Mama Meenah is here to fix you right up, sis. Get up, get up, dinner is almost here and I brought cake! You know you want some.”  
She glares at you but it's not her best, not her most terrifying glance by a long shot.  
“You look like a dirty stray. When have you showered last?” 

“Nnngh,” she gurgles, and punches you in the chest, but it's a weak punch and you've always been stronger than her anyway. “Go awave.”

“Nope. You invited me over, don't remember? You pissed me right the glub off, too. And now I'm here. Get out of this garbage and go shower.”

“Who the fuck are you. You can't order me around. I don't know you,” Feferi whines. Her hair is a mess of tangles and you cry for her, internally, because combing that shit out is gonna be damn painful. 

“Get up,” you repeat, and start pulling on her arm. She yelps again, and tries to cover herself up a little. You don't care about her privates and how they're happily showing through her skimpy lingerie.  
You've had to bathe her, for God's sake.  
She was such a cute baby, all making bubbles in the water since she was a fucking infant. 

Oh, those were easier times. Brighter. 

“Leave.”

“Nah, come on. Imma help you out, I'm such a nice beach.” You pull her finally out of bed, and her knees wobble a lot, her muscles on their way to atrophy. “You ruin yourshellf like this again, sis, and imma take the company back, ya hear me? No more CrockerCorp Side B for you.”

“This is not about the biz, Meenah,” she whines, following you down the hallway, not that you're leaving her much choices. “Just– Fucking Makara.”

“Yeah. And that's the biz. You wouldn't even know his name if it weren't for the biz.”

You know you're right, Feferi knows you're right, and everyone else on this damn planet knows you're right too.  
She just has to see sense, for one goddamn time in her life. 

“I would too! He is–” she curses profusely, and her fist collides with the bathroom door, the wood giving a little and breaking under the hit. “Fuck him. And fuck you too.”  
She disappears into the bathroom and a moment after, you hear the shower running. 

*

tell me I'm the NIC---EST person you know

No

wow  
fuck you too

Busy ttyl

38/

You will tell yourself you're the nicest person you know, then, since Dirk is being such an asshole.

You place new clothes in front of the bathroom and leave Feferi to her long due shower. She has all that hair to wash and comb through, and you know she's the kind of person who spends half a life for her ablutions. Just like your asshole best friend. 

If Strider wasn't so against Feferi and her business, you're sure they would go along like a house on fire. 

“So,” you say, swaying into the kitchen and sitting down in front of the roomies. “Baby gill is in the shower. She will be out sooner or later. I was finking of spending the night if it s'chool with you both. I know you peeps have your own little preeferences when it comes to guests, tho, so let me know if you don't want me here or somefin.” 

Serket watches you with keen eyes.  
Well, one keen eye. The other is a bit of a mess and you're not sure she can see anything at all with it.

She is cute alright, you think, and at the same time you wonder about what kind of evaluation she is making of you. 

Is it good?  
You hope it's good.  
You hope it's good enough for you to take her out for a drink and maybe… Well, maybe something more than a drink?

“It's cool. Every girl is welcome. And you're Peixes Prime!” Pyrope says, as if the fact that you are who you are makes you holy and sanctimonious. 

“You can sleep in my room if you want to,” Serket adds, winking at you with so little subtlety that you have to bark a laugh at her. 

“We have a thousand guest rooms. You need a fucking drink, Serket,” Terezi snaps and that only makes you laugh harder. 

“No, no. S'chool. I can share. I don't mind at all,” you say, and throw a wink back at Vriska because she damn well deserves it. 

Cute, unashamed, little roomie.  
You like her. 

~*~

Meenah Peixes might have a terrible, awful singing voice, but she's a choice piece of ass.  
And you mean that quite literally. 

The skirt she's wearing hugs her hips and waist in a way that make you salivate harder and you might be thinking the wrong kinds of thoughts. 

The kind one should never entertain when their best friend is in a bad mental and emotional place, and most of all, the kind of thoughts one should never, under any circumstances, entertain about their best friend's sister. 

You think you have lost some pages of your sis code somewhere along the way, because Meenah Peixes makes you think all kinds of naughty things. 

She is just so fucking gorgeous and you want to kneel at her feet while she spreads her legs for you and… 

Yeah. 

The _sis code, Vriska_ , get a fucking grip.

“Seriously,” Terezi mumbles, trying to push a glass of water in front of you and failing completely.  
You pity her, but only a little. 

She is trying her best to adjust to her new disability and, honestly speaking, you have no right to pity anyone who has survived Makara's hands. 

Terezi Pyrope deserves only respect from you. You're a weaky weak weakling compared to her. 

“Go on, take a sip. A long one. You need it badly,” she says, and she at least has the decency to be quiet. 

Meenah is upstairs, checking on Fef – and you're okay with your best friend being taken care of by someone who isn't you, for the first time in your life – but that doesn't necessarily mean she can't hear you.

“You don't see her, Pyrope. If you did–”

“I would still not be as thirsty as you. Goddamn, you're embarrassing,” she says, pushing the glass a bit more. It's decidedly too close to the border of the table, and you take it only because you don't want to make a mess on the floor. And you drink only because your mouth is a little bit parched. 

It has absolutely nothing to do with Meenah Peixes. 

*

Feferi levels you and Terezi with a dagger-like kind of glare, but she doesn't comment too much. 

“Pizza is terribly unhealthy,” she mutter to Meenah, and that's the extent to her reservations. 

“What,” Meenah says, her cheeks full of half chewed delicious food. She doesn't give a fuck about healthy things, you think. 

“Have you ever heard of a balanced diet?” Terezi asks, her imitation of Feferi's voice and tone is flawless, as usual. “Do you want to reach thirty with a putrescent stomach or what?”

“Wow,” Meenah says, and she swallows down her mouthful of pizza with a very unhealthy swig of her beer. “Is this the kind of bullshit you trout?” she asks Feferi, and your best friend has her mouth twisted in that way that means a rant is coming.

“It's not bullshit, Meenah!” Fef hisses, “you need to take care of your body, and eating junk food is a sure wave to get put underground before your time. Do you want to die soon because you've never heard of a balanced diet?”

Meenah's eyes glint and she looks at you and then at Terezi and then back to her sister. “Little joys of life, sis. I'm not gonna feed on kale just to add three pitiful years to my already miserable life.”

“I'm not talking about kale. Just a regular diet. Vegetables. Fruit. Good fats. Proteins.” 

“But, like, pizza, Fef. Pizza,” Meenah says, waving a slice of her pizza around. You are almost afraid she will use it to slap her sister in the face. 

And Feferi is quick with her gun, and unforgiving of very pointless, little things. 

“You'll end up like mom,” Feferi says, and it's the first time you've heard her talk about her mother in a non exactly whining fashion.

“Nice. She's still alive, after all. And she's fucking ancient.”

“Oh, haha. I'm shore you wanna spend the last years of your _miserable_ life bedridden,” Feferi spits out, and she must consider the discussion closed, because she starts attacking her pizza. 

Despite all her bitching, she eats like a starving woman. 

“So,” Meenah says, not a trace of awkwardness in her body or voice.  
You want to be like her.  
Confident and gorgeous and fucking suave. “You ladies doing anything after dinner?” 

“Maybe,” Terezi says, and she smiles in your direction, her teeth bared like fangs. “Vriska would very much like to do you.” 

Feferi yelps and Terezi screeches when your napkin collides with her face, tilting her glasses. 

“Vriska!” your best friend snaps, every tendon and muscle in your body tensing up and turning to her like a very well behaved dog. 

Feferi has conditioned you, you're fucking sure of it.  
You aren't scared of her because she has never, ever pulled her gun on you, never hurt you, never even threatened to.  
But damn if you don't heed to her every order. “I forbid you to lust after my sister.”

“No fun Fef. Remember when we called you that?” Meenah interjects, her smile sharp, and a wink just for you in her eyes. 

“You still do,” Feferi hisses, slapping her sister's shoulder with too much force not to hurt. “You don't touch my gills, you understand me? They're off limits.”

“It's so nice to feel like a real person with a real free will,” Terezi deadpans, abandoning her cutlery on the table and sipping from her glass of coke. “And a real power to decide about my own life, too!”

“Cut it out,” Feferi growl. She is getting antsy and you want to pull her in for a hug, hold her tight, until the tide passes, but you don't.  
You don't have the time to, because Meenah tap-tap-taps her fingers on the table and gets everyone's attention on herself. 

“Nice dinner peeps. What do you say about dessert? I made cake,” she suggests, getting up and leveling Feferi with a glare that could destroy cities. Maybe even entire countries.  
“Serket, come help me.”

You get up in a fraction of a second, your subconscious subby sub nature is showing enough for Terezi to pick up on it and she snickers at you.  
Feferi doesn't seem as amused.

“She gets like this,” Meenah says, taking the cake out of the oven. You didn't even know she had put it in there, if you have to be honest. “Irritation is one of the most prominent side effects of her depression.”

“Yeah, I know. I've seen her like this before,” you confess. Feferi doesn't like when you talk about it, and she loves to pretend she is the most neurotypical on the block, but you somewhat know the monster commonly know as depression, and you also know how not to ever contradict Fef when she says something. 

“Yeah, right. You've been living with her how long now? Three years?” 

“Three and a half. She had her moments. Her crises. Not like this, though. She always went away for a while. I think to her brother?” You don't tell her you know Sollux. You don't say his name, either. Just the thought makes your skin crawl in disgust.

“Sol, yes.” She smiles down at the cake, diligently cutting four slices of the exact same dimension. “Sol is the one who knows best about depression. The chum is like, constantly in there. His brain is a pit of grimbleakness and apathy.”

“Nice,” you mumble. Thank god you know nothing of that. Of all the things your life left you scarred with, depression is not even on the checklist.  
PTSD? Sure. Night terrors and insomnia? Check as hell. Anxiety? Oh-la-la, you can bet your ass.

But no depression. You don't even know what depression entails, so far detached from your list of mind troubles as it is. 

“Take these to the sharks,” she tells you, pushing over two of the plates. “Shit, Pyrope eats like a man on his last dinner.”

“Don't ever compare Rezi to a man. Really. Not even jokingly,” you say, your skin crawling, your hair standing upright. Meenah Peixes looks taken aback for one second only, and than she smiles and winks at you. 

“Gotcha gill. My bad.”

~*~

The sharks, as you called them, are very happy with your cake, indeed. 

Feferi gives you the stink eye, asks you what you put in there, and you recite her the list of ingredients, putting emphasis on all the right places. Her eyes gleam up when she hears stuff like brown sugar, or wholemeal flour. 

You suspect she has a big ol' kink for healthy food, but you're not going to out her in her own home, in front of her cute roomies. 

“I'm going back to bed,” your baby sister snaps as you make a lascivious show of licking of your spoon in front of Serket for the third time in a row. 

To be fair, it's not your fault she's so cute when she blushes.  
And the icing is delicious, you can't very well leave it on the cold metal of your spoon, can you?

“What, no shot of tequila tonight?” Pyrope asks, and you're not sure how serious she is until you physically feel Feferi stiffen up beside you. 

“No,” your baby sister hisses, “no tequila tonight. Unless you want some? You know where I keep it.”

“Oi, Fef!” Serket spits out, and you guess that it was the wrong thing to say, because Terezi's mouth hangs open and her hands are clenched around the napkin, her nails tearing the frail paper to shreds a little bit.  
Vriska is patting her shoulder, awkward like a little fish out of water, and she has the fury of all hell in her eye as she stares your sister down. 

“Alright. Sorry. I'm a beach. A _bitch_. Sorry Rezi.”

“Nah, it's cool,” Terezi says, her voice cracking and her cheeks streamed by tears. It's not cool, it's the opposite of cool, and you would tear down the roof if you were in Pyrope's shoes and someone had used something you're sensitive about against you. But she doesn't. She just stays sat down, practically immovable, head held high and shoulders squared up.

“No, it's not,” you say, because someone has to. “Feferi Lampré Peixes, go to your room right the fuck now. And don't come out until you're ready to be a decent human being.”

“Yeah. Yes. I'm–”

“Shush,” you interrupt her, caressing her head softly. “Regroup first, fix it later. Do as mom alwaves did.”

“Oh, _wow_ ,” she says, and her voice is full of tears. She listens, though, and she listens well. Good little baby, Feferi. Always been. She leaves the table and you hear her sob as she goes to her room, and Terezi starts sobbing almost at the same time, hugged tight to Vriska's flat chest. 

“How mom always did? What's that?” she asks after a while. You suppose it's only fair to share with her personal information about your and Feferi's life. 

“Well, dunno what baby girl told you, but mom used to get piss drunk and beat us. She used to retire in her rooms after we were both bloody as hell and come back sober to clean us up. As a good mom should, amirite?”

They are silent, and Vriska stares at you with her one functioning eye for long, interminable minutes.  
You guess it's your blase attitude that's getting to them, and you shrug under her scrutiny. “T'was a long time ago,” you tell them. “She can't use her legs nemo, not as much occasions to hurt us.”

*

Talking about the old lady is the best way to have you thinking about her all night, instead of getting some well deserved rest.  
But you owed them this much. Or, well, Feferi owed them, you were just standing in for her.  
You're such a nice sister, you disgust yourself for how sappy and fond you are of little Fef and her big, soulful eyes. 

re: my shitty mother

What abo+ut her?  
Also+, sho+uldn't you be asleep girl? It's late.

keep finkin it was not as bad as it couldva been  
this is the road to self destruction, maryam. im askin you to save me  
take me to shore

Yo+ur mo+ther sent yo+u to+ the ho+spital. Twice. It was as bad as it co+uld have been, Meenah. + she hurt Fef and Fef was a baby at the time, wasn't she? Yo+ur mo+ther is a right mo+nster, if you ask me and yo+u're under no+ o+bligatio+n to+ justify her o+r pity her o+r making her lo+o+k any less bad than she was.

there's some peeps who have it reel worse, tho… 

So+ what? Is what yo+u went thro+ugh any less damaging just because so+meo+ne else suffered more? This is no+t the pain O+lympics, girl. Yo+u do+n't get to+ co+mpete for the first place. There's no+ medal fo+r who+ has suffered wo+rst at the hand o+f their parents.

i know, maryam. 'm not sayin she was all fin and cool  
just doubtin my feelins, I guess

I think do+ubting yo+ur feelings might be no+rmal pro+cedure fo+r survivo+rs. Yo+u did well messaging me, Meenah. Reaching o+ut is very impo+rtant.

You laugh a little to yourself, a moist crackle of barking voice, and you think Porrim's typing quirk is shit, but it's also soothing as hell, and you might not have a friend who's better than Maryam. In all possible ways. 

praise me Porrim, feed my praise kink

Yo+u want to+ ro+leplay so+me weird vanilla kinky shit? Because yo+u kno+w very well I am in fact do+wn fo+r it. I can tell yo+u yo+u are a go+o+d girl and you can pretend I'm petting yo+ur head as yo+u eat me o+ut o+r so+mething.

whale… 

The offer is indeed inviting, but at the same time it feels somewhat unfair when you remember Vriska Serket's flushed cheeks as she showed you the room you're spending the night in.  
Serket is cute and downright delectable, and there is nothing you would like more than to feel her slip under the covers beside you, right now.

Some good physical activity would put your head out of the dark pit it has fallen into, at the very least, and you would see some action after a too goddamn long dry spell.

have to raincheck, but I appreciate the offer 39)  
thats supposed to be a wink but it looks fuckin awful  
3;)

Anytime Meens. Are yo+u feeling any better?

shore thing, popo merrygamz. Thanks for bein a good friend

Do+n't even mentio+n it girl. I am always here if yo+u need to+ talk, o+kay?

yeah. youre the glubbin best

You hesitate for a moment, your fingers hovering over the keyboard on the screen, and then, as it is usual with you, you say fuck it, possibly aloud and possibly too loud for the hour, and you add a little heart at the end of the message before sending it. 

<3 <3 <3 is Porrim's answer, and you kinda fall into sleep, comfortable and warm and with a silly smile on your face. 

~*~

In the morning, Feferi is making breakfast. She has her hair in a messy bun and a large shirt that covers her to her thighs, and she looks like shit.

“Did you even sleep?” you ask her, your brain slow and muddy and your thoughts confused.  
You always worry too much in the morning, or maybe you show all of it instead of keeping it inside. 

“Shore,” Feferi says. It's a lie and she knows you know and you let it go because you're feeling particularly merciful as she offers you a cup of coffee. She knows how to bribe you, that's a solid fact that no one can refuse. 

You think it's because she's been your best friend for a life and a half, Terezi says it's because she's a mob boss. 

“Your sister is hot,” you tell her, because it's true and because your tongue is free to say what it wants, so early in the day. You will regret it later, possibly. 

“Don't even, Vriska. I forbid you from– form everyfin. Anyfin. Don't get involved with Meenah.”

“Why not? You know how long it's been since I've seen some action?” you whine, sitting at the table and letting her serve you breakfast. She likes taking care of her little creatures, and you know it perfectly well, and that's the only reason why you let her do all the work. 

“Vris,” she says. Feferi has a peculiar tone of voice when she's about to go on a fucking long rant, and you are already starting to regret opening your mouth.  
She's not exactly condescending, no, but it's damn close. “I know my sister. And I know you, you romantic asshole. You want hearts and flowers and all that stupid fucking shit. And she doesn't care.”

“Have you been her girlfriend?”

“No,” Fef says, her lips thinning and her eye narrowing at you, she's a mask of _I'm not going to be impressed with your argument_.

“How would you know, then?” you ask. This conversation is already shit as it is, who cares if you make it a show of idiocy?

“She keeps scores. She bangs one-hundred percent of the ladies she meets. And then she doesn't want to hear from three quarters of them ever again.” She dumps your plate in front of you, bacon crispy and eggs perfectly soft and still a little viscous, just as you like them. 

“I might be part of the one quarter left, though.”

“You are my best fucking friend!” Feferi hisses, her voice low, so damn low you barely hear her. “I don't want her to hurt you.”

“You sure it's not jealousy?” you ask. Fundamentally, you say the words because you're an asshole. Feferi knows you're an asshole, but it doesn't make it hurt any less, and you see all the rage expiring from her expression, her shoulders slumping and her eyes widening until she's a statue of broken innocence and destroyed trust.

“Fuck you,” she says, but it's weak and you know she doesn't have it in herself to mean it. 

You bit your lower lip and try to find a way to fix it as soon as possible, but it's not as if you're high on empathy, and comforting others has always been one of the most difficult things to do. 

*

“I fucked up,” you tell Terezi.  
She directs her eyes more or less in your direction, and even if she can't see, you feel as if she's staring straight into your soul.  
That's not cliche at all. 

“So?” she says, shrugging her shoulders. 

“So, you know more about fixing relationships than I do. Help me.”

“Ask nicely and I will think about it.” She grins at you and plops her legs on your lap, laying down on the couch, not giving one single fuck about anything.  
After spending the most of the night crying her eyes out, she is finally back to her usual self, and you're both glad and hating it. 

“Pretty please?” 

“Prettier,” she says, grin widening and you roll your eyes but comply, making your voice as sweet as you can and begging again for her help. 

“Alright,” Terezi concedes, fluttering her eyelashes at you. “What did you do?”

“I might have dug up some stuff that should have stayed buried forever.”

“And you want my help to bury it again?”

“If possible,” you say, and look at Terezi, trying to gauge her reaction.  
People who don't use their eyes are weird to read, you've realized. Her face is a fogged up mirror and you barely see a miserable reflection of yourself in her glasses. 

“A cycle of hurtful words and forced reconciliations, ain't it?” she says, her voice cracking only the barest minimum. 

“Fef is at least justified–”

“No, she's not. We all have our mental health problems, all three of us, Vriska, that doesn't mean we're not accountable for our mistakes.”

Terezi, you tend to forget quite easily, is a justice freak, and her favorite word is accountability. Really. She finds the most occasions possible to use it. Sometimes she invents said occasions, if it has been too long since the last time she had been able to say it.

“Whatever, Rezi. I think she has more excuses to behave like a piece of shit than I do.”

“Of course you do, but that doesn't mean you're right.” Terezi leans back until her head rests as comfortably as possible – which… you don't think it's much, all considered – on the armrest of the couch. “So, let's say I take a shovel to your mess and you take a– A hatchet to mine… What then? I dig and you bury?”

“Don't get so into the metaphors,” you say, poking her in the shin. “You help me find a way to apologize to Fef, I help Fef to find a way to apologize to you, and then we go back to living our lives.”

“And you get Peixes Prime's number.”

“Also that, yes, but it is not part of the plan. At all.” You glare at her and you know she can't see you, but probably she can feel it on her skin. You hope she can. “Don't interfere with that, Pyrope. I am well capable of asking a lady out all by myself.”

“I believe you, Vriska.” Her grin is not at all reassuring. 

~*~

The ringing of the phone wakes you up from one of the most restless sleeps of your life.  
You're not grateful to whomever is calling, no, because sleeping is always and will always be your number one priority, but you have to admit it's a very close call. “Who?” you ask, trying to keep your eyes open. 

The room is dark, since for once you remembered to close the curtains before passing out, but your eyes burn and you tear up like a little bitch. 

“Good morning, is it a bad time?” For a moment, the voice sounds so completely weird and unknown, you have to look at the screen for a caller ID, and that only serves to make your eyes hurt more. 

“Who's speakin?” you inquire, your patience running thinner and thinner.

“Since when it's appropriate to name names? I thought you were more careful than that, Heiress.”

A cold shiver run down your spine and you pull the phone closer to your lips, murmuring into it, “Go fuck yourself.”

It's time to leave.

*

“Have to go, baby girl. The Dipinto called,” you whisper, knowing perfectly well that Pyrope has the hearing of a fucking cat.  
Feferi looks straight into your eyes, her own wide and worried. “You don't do anything until I tell you. I'm taking care of this.”

“It's _my_ biz,” she complains, slapping her open palms on the table. 

“The Dipinto is not anemoneone's biz if not mine. Been mine since you were in our momma's uterus. Stay down for a few days. Call the techie and tell him to go home.”

“Where are you going, Meenah?” Feferi asks, and you somehow envision her in the next five minutes, after you will have left, she's going have a fucking breakdown. One of the kind no one has yet seen in this apartment. 

“Not tellin. Get Crocker on the line, tell her to say her goodbyes or something, I want her with me tomorrow morning.”

“Jane is _my_ VP!”

“Fef, this is not a matter of what's whose. I need Crocker because she's good with a gun, and I need to take care of this because it's the glubbin Dipinto!”

“Lalonde is better,” Feferi says, but you read it on her face that her resolve is crumbling. 

“I'm not involvin her. I need someone who knows the ropes. Crocker is good enough to get out alive.”

“Are you?” Feferi spits out, and you hug her tight and kiss her forehead. 

“Give this to Serket,” you say, winking at her and smiling the biggest smile you can manage, dropping a crumpled piece of paper in front of her. 

*

tuna

Y35 5I573R D34R?

sol is comin home for a whale

0K4Y…   
WHY 7H0???

have a job to do   
if im not back in three days…   
call fef she knows what to do

4R3 Y0U G01NG 0N 4 5U1C1D3 M15510N???????????????????????

TOO MANY GLUBBIN QU----ESTION MARKS!!!  
yes by the wave   
or whale  
not reely   
in three days call fef if im not back  
gotta go

*

Crocker is in front of your house exactly when you need her.  
You don't know what kind of magical power she's got, or how she came to have it, but you're fairly sure she sold her soul for it to some ancient, not entirely benign deity. 

“Her Radiance said something about the Dipinto,” she says as a greeting, and you nod to her.  
Gone are the pink clothes and nice skirts, you had to dress appropriately for the job, and Croker did too, her elegant, man-like cut dresses are nowhere to be seen, in its place a black tracksuit and soft gloves. She offers you a pair, and you show your already covered hands. 

“I do know how to do this job, Jane,” you remind her. Before she even came to life you were entrenched so deep in CrockerCorp's shady businesses, it was all but funny. 

“Good to know. I wouldn't go against him with someone unprepared.”

“He spoke of a truce,” you confess. Something you couldn't very well say to Feferi, not so soon, not before looking more into it, not before making sure yourself if he means it for real. 

Easy to promise a white flag ready to be waved, a little less to stop the tide.

And you know all about tides. Your life has been built of tides. You have been born in the middle of one, the raising moon and raising sea and blood splatters on everything you owned. 

You know him, you've known him for your entire life, and you believe him when he says he's tired.  
At the same time, though… 

“The Dipinto is not exactly a man I would call truthful,” Jane says, and you nod again, because you see where she comes from. 

It's so easy, so disgustingly effortless to look at the Dipinto and see Makara blood, see the crimes and sins of his family. 

But you've known him your entire life, and somewhere, somehow, you find it in yourself to trust him.

~*~

A ball of paper hits you in the knee. 

“For you,” Feferi snaps. You see the end of her hair as she returns to her room. 

Well, you think, at least she said something. 

You look at the ball, turning it in your hands. Is she communicating with you through paper messages, now? 

There's a cellphone number scrawled at the top, and under it reads a short message:

call in three days  
if i answer im takin you clubbin  
if I dont… talk to Fef  
MP

You don't know if you're being paranoid or what, but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.  
Something tells you you should be worrying. 

It might be the anxiety.  
The anxiety always tells you you should be worrying.

This time though… this time it might be the real deal. It might not be a fucking drill. 

What if–

_What if_ , you ask yourself, you go and speak to Feferi right now, instead of drowning in useless thoughts?

You stomp as hard as you can as you take the stairs two steps at a time, and Feferi is waiting for you on the entryway to her room, her eyes shaded and red-rimmed, her cheeks blotched. 

“What does this mean?” you ask, showing her the message Meenah has left for you. 

“Have you lost the ability to read?” she spits out, eyebrows raised.  
You've known her far too long to not realize when she's putting up a front, and she knows you know.  
Your relationship has always been based on this kind of knowledge exchange, and still you both remain silent on it, don't spoil the game for each other, never. 

It wouldn't be any fun to be upfront with this kind of things. 

“Feferi,” you say, and you find it somewhat hard to look her in the eyes, the hurt you caused her just this morning is still there, still burning, and it's your fault, completely, and you know you can fix it, but you don't know if you will be able to. 

Apologizing is not exactly in the top five of things that come easy to you. 

“Fef,” you say, your voice cracking a little. You clear your throat, and she's impatient, she's waiting for you to say sorry, she's going to forgive you, too. She never requires much, to forgive you. 

Feferi takes care of her little creatures. She loves them, and you're one of those.  
You're the first of those little creatures, outside of her blood family, and you goddamn know it. 

“What do you want to know, Vriska?” she snaps, done with you, done with waiting, done with the day, probably. “Do you want all the gritty details? Do you want to know that Meenah is still neck-deep in the business? Do you want to know that she's gone to the Dipinto with just Jane as a cover!?”

“I– Fef, I don't understand. I thought you took care of the business…”

“Yes,” she interrupts you, slapping her open palm against the door-frame, “but she's still part of the family, and she was the boss before I hit eighteen and became available. And now, she's gone. And she will probably die, because the Dipinto is fucking dangerous!” She lets out a scream. Her voice is loud and broken and full of anger. 

Terezi pokes her head out of her bedroom, looks somewhat in your direction, frowning. In a moment, she's standing next to you, her chin on your shoulder. 

“What's going on?” she asks. 

Feferi sighs, long and dragged out. “My sister is an idiot. Sorry for yesterday, Rezi. I shouldn't have said anything, I was out of line, and a real bitch.”

Terezi shrugs, running a hand through her hair, messing it up even more, and she exhale. “It's okay. I shouldn't have commented either. We're fine, Fef, really.”

“No, I–” Feferi starts, but you shake your head just a little, and even if she's angry with you, she still takes your cue. “Okay, thank you for forgiving me,” she finishes placing a hand on Terezi's shoulder and squeezing lightly.

“No problem. Why is your sister an idiot?”

“Umm,” Feferi stalls, looking at you with eyes as big as saucers. You try to convey to her that you have no idea what she wants from you, because you actually don't, for once in your life, but you don't think she understands. “Hmm, she kind of went to… Like, have a talk. With Kurloz Makara.”

*

It's an hour of intense panic and screaming, but in the end, both you and Terezi are too rough-voiced to scream anymore, and Feferi looks like she has a very prominent headache, and you lay all together on the couch, because it's the best surface of the entire apartment. 

“She's going to die,” Terezi mutters, again. You've heard the same phrase repeated over and over and over. You're tired of thinking about death. 

Death has been nice to you only once, and then no more, and you don't want to think about it. 

“Meenah is smart with a gun,” Feferi says, and she sounds like she's trying to convince herself more than you two. You don't say anything. 

Makaras and all that concerns them are not your area of expertise. Nor you want it to be.  
It's for the best that you stay as far out of it as you can.  
Who would want to get themselves stuck with those clowns?

Murderous clowns, if it wasn't bad enough.  
Murderous and strong and smart. 

And with a bone to pick with Feferi and Jane and Jane's little live-in best friend. 

“She could be smart with a laser rifle and she would still be dead at the end of it. Because the Dipinto doesn't let go.”

“He's not as bad as–” Terezi hisses, loud, and Feferi closes her mouth, her lips a thin line in her face, her hands clenched into fists, knuckles as pale as they get under strain. 

“We have three days right?” you say, your voice escaping almost without notice, surely without permission.  
Your bad ideas gland has sized up your brain and now you must talk. You must explain this stupid plan to them. “We could go and help her. I'm still good with my weapons and–”

“Shut up!” Terezi screams, throwing her glass of water – thankfully empty – to the ground. It shatters, and Feferi stares at it in dismay. Her eyes are full of fury. “You don't know shit, Serket. You don't know how they are!”

“Rezi is right,” Fef says, because she has never had your back when the bad ideas start rolling. “You're not going out of this house until I know it's safe.”

“But–”

“No.” Your best friend in the entire world sends a glare at you, and you find yourself shutting up.  
Feferi is quick with her gun, quicker with her slaps, super quick with her krav maga. 

You have no desire to be put on the ground. Or in the ground, really. 

“Cowards,” you mutter, standing up. You're done with them. Done with the conversation. Done with everything. 

“Better a coward than a dead woman,” Terezi whispers at you, ice in her voice, shoulders tense. 

“Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.”

~*~

Kurloz is just as skinny as you remember from your high school days, but now that he's taller, it makes him look unhealthily skeletal. 

His hair is coiled tight, a few dreads here and there. His skin more ashen than ever, his piercings white gold and amethysts. 

“Tryin' out the eating disorder life?” you ask him.  
Next to you, Jane is silent as the dead. As silent as Kurloz himself, and you're _unnerved_. Such a weird feeling, after years of not being in the business. Your nerves are singing, the hair on the back of your neck and on your arms are standing upright, your skin buzzing.

“Meenah,” he says, a growl, rough and hard and his voice misused, lost, afraid. “Thank you for coming.”  
He is wearing a suit, silver and purple. Italian tailor, you know him by name. He makes your suits too, your gessati and tailleurs and your evening gowns and cocktail dresses. 

“Nice cufflinks,” you say, eying the diamonds and pearls at his wrists.  
Kurloz is the man you would have married if you were interested in men whatsoever.  
He's gorgeous, refined, and has more blood on his hand than most serial killers behind bars.

Jane Crocker, you think, is his female equivalent. Or maybe Feferi is. 

“A peace offering of sorts,” he says, and you nod, grin. He knows you still know how to read him. Your darlingest beard from high school, when your mother was still too healthy for you to be out and proud.

Your old best friend, the man who knows all your secrets. 

The _traitor_. 

“Meulin says hi,” you bluff, and his eyes gleam with something. Something like regret and pain and fear and longing. “She's still so _grateful_.”

“I had hoped she would be. My brother… he's been out of control for a long time.”

“It wasn't lil Clamz holding the blade, if I recall correctly.” 

Jane is a statue, her hands in her pockets, the outline of a gun on her side, and you know she's carrying more than one weapon, because she's just prepared like that. A responsible killer. 

“Family–”

“Don't even, Kurlz. _She_ could have been your family. _We_ could have been your family. You chose to side with him,” you snap, and he recoils, takes a step back, his skinny limbs all trembling and unstable.  
He looks around himself as if the world is spinning in his eyes, and you wonder how good an idea it was, coming here, talking to him, digging up the past like this. 

“I'm choosing you now. Isn't it good enough?”

“Is it?” you ask, moving forward. You don't know if you would rather support him or punch him and see him hit the ground, but you close the space between you before making a decision, and when you're staring into his eyes, not ten millimeters from him, your arms move on their own accord, gripping him tight at his middle, pulling him close to you. 

His scent hasn't changed, he still uses the same disgustingly sweet cologne, the same shampoo, the same strawberry soap.  
You missed him and you hate him and you still consider him your best friend, even if now you have Dirk stepping into his place, occupying your spaces and your time and your mind. 

“Let me come back,” he whispers, bending down to bury his head in your hair, his lips brushing against your forehead. 

“You chose to leave. We didn't send you away, Kurlz.”

“I know. But I want to come back now. I don't want to stay with him anymore. I want to come home,” he pleads. 

You have kept his room untouched, clean, exactly as he left it.  
You have not let anyone enter it, ruin it, conquer it as theirs. Not Dirk, not Mituna, not Sollux. 

“What happened?” you ask, because you have to.  
You hear Jane cocking her gun, and you know she would shoot right, in between his eyes, maybe, or a warning shot on his shoulder, and you don't want that. 

You sign to her, behind your back, to stay put. 

“Nothing,” he whispers. A story, hidden in his voice, and lies upon lies upon lies. He has always been like this.  
A willing subject and a victim, in the long run. 

“I wouldn't have,” you murmur, bitter and resentful and unforgiving, unforgetting, like the sea. “Whatever he did to you, I wouldn't have.”

“I know,” he repeats, a beg, and it pains you so much to hear his voice like this, but at the same time you must make sure this is not a ruse, not a plan, not anything that will hurt you or yours. 

“What did he do?” you ask him again, unrelenting, “Tell me and you can come home.”

“No,” he breaths out, holding you tighter, his muscles shaking.

“Did he rape you? Is that it?” 

“What? No. No he didn't.”

“Because he has a history of rape and assault. He did jail time for it, didn't he?” you say, caressing his knobby spine, each vertebra easily distinguishable from the last. 

“He didn't! I'm his brother.”

“So what? My mom beat me up for years and I'm her daughter. Family hurts family all the time, Kurloz. Tell me what he did to you. Tell me and everything will go back as it was, I promise.”

“Meenah please,” he says, and he has a hint of tears in both his voice and his dark eyes, but you can't let that sway you. You can't have pity for him. Not now. Not under these circumstances. 

It could very well be a ploy to infiltrate Feferi's headquarters and you care too much about your baby sister to let that happen. 

“This is a fair deal,” you tell him, and you push away from his body, let him crumble, fold unto himself like a piece of paper in the wind.

“He– He killed my fiancé. Three days before… before–” he chokes on the words, and you give him the time he needs, because you can see that he will talk, you know him well enough to see when his resolve has been broken. “Because I didn't protect Caliborn. Gamzee killed him three days before the marriage. I can't stay with him, Meenah. Please.”

“Alright.” You place your hands on him, one on his back, one on his stomach, and you feel his muscle cramping, contracting hard. He could be sick in a moment, for all you know, but you don't care. You force him to drape himself against you, and you turn to Jane. “Crocker,” you call her, “put the gun away and go get the car. We're taking him back with us.”

“That doesn't seem like a very conscionable idea, if I may.”

“Be supportive or shut up. He's under my protection now, until further notice.” Jane nods at you, her mouth close and her expression unimpressed and disapproving. But she's good at following orders and she puts the gun away, turns around to go get the car, and you see she has her phone in her hands, no doubt to inform everyone that Kurloz is off limits. 

*

“I gotta take this,” you say, tapping your phone screen and putting it to your ear. “Speak,” you spit into the mic. Kurloz is staring at you instead of eating his food, and you tap impatiently on the table, looking straight into his eyes. 

“You're alive, then,” Feferi says on the other side, and you hear both the abyssal wrath and the unending relief. You expect a visit in two point six seconds, if nothing because you hear the clack-clacking of her heels on the marble floors. 

“Didn't Crocker say so?”  
The door opens, Kurloz tries not to flinch, his fork falls down into his plate, clatters fastidiously, and your nerves are on edge.

“I trust Jane dearly, but it doesn't– I doesn't change anyfin, I was glubbing worried sick!” Feferi screeches. You have one second to turn to her, and your cheek stings like fire. “You unbelievable idiot!” she screams in your face. “What if you died? Huh?” There are tears. Obviously there are tears. You didn't expect anything else, truly.  
Kurloz snickers, and receives two pairs of scalding hot eyes turned to him. 

“Shut up,” you tell him, before Feferi can change her mind and rip _him_ a new one. 

“Didn't say a thing,” he tells you, shrugging his board shoulders, hunching down more on his plate, as if you would really ignore the fact he is not eating if he only manages to hide his still untouched food. 

“Coddamn,” Feferi whispers, and you see the moment she starts fretting like you can see the first hints of dawn breaking the sky. She slaps you once again, giving you one of her looks. “Never again, Meenah,” she hisses, before pouring all her attention on your guest. Roommate, now, you guess. This is his home too. 

Your sister steals the chair next to Kurloz and she sits down, slipping his plate from under his waterfall of hair and his cutlery too, right from his clenched hands.  
She cuts bite-sized pieces in the meat and the vegetables. 

She looks like a mother. A patient mother. 

She looks like Porrim. 

“Here,” she says when she's done, pushing everything back in Kurloz's direction. She keeps the knife close, though, and you wonder about it until you scout every visible inch of your friend's skin and find his little cuts. “Eat.”

“Not hungry, Princess.”

“It's Radiance, now, if you really wish to use a title. Should I call you Dipinto?” Feferi snaps, slapping an open hand on the table. She has known Kurloz just as long as you have, and she cares too much for everyone, your little, adorable, baby sister.

“Do as you wish, Radiance.”

“Feferi,” she says, and it's an order if you've ever heard one. “I know what he did to you, I know it hurts. Eat. Get better, get revenge.”

Kurloz raises his eyes and stare at Feferi for long minutes. You get tired of their silent match and snap a photo of them, send it to Dirk. 

aren't they cute? im makin weddin invitations

Cool. 

are you okay chum? youre not kelpin things from me again, are you?

Would I ever? 

Dirk

I'm fine, Meenah. Get on with your life. Call me when you need someone to bitch at or whatever. 

So, Dirk is being a pissbaby and you're bored. Bored of the not-conversation going on in front of you, the little battle of wills, and bored of your friend's curt answers.  
You need more friend in your life, really. 

You phone pings. 

No, you know what?  
Fuck you, Meenah Peixes, fuck you so very much. Do you know who informed me of your suicidal plans? Your brother! Not even the friendly one!  
You didn't even have the decency to tell me yourself! And now you want to joke about the damn monster your brought into your home? Just like nothing happened? As if I never almost lost my best fucking friend to her own stupidity?  
No. Fuck you and your entire family tree, present, past and future. 

woah dirk clam the glub down   
i didnt tell you because it was not reely important  
and i knew tuna or sol would say somefin

YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING, YOU UNBELIEVABLE PIECE OF SHIT!

CLAM T)(----E FUCK DOWN I SAID!!!!

GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH YOUR SUICIDAL IDEATIONS! ALSO, YOUR QUIRK IS STUPID!

You throw the phone down on the table, and Feferi and Kurloz both jump at the same time, snapping out of their silent stare-war.  
“Fuck him,” you say, mostly to yourself.  
You've never needed a man in your life, sure as hell you're not starting to need one now. 

“Let me guess,” your sister starts, and you don't want her to guess at shit. “Someone's bothered because of your downright stupid actions.”

“As if I would really hurt her. You behave like Meenah doesn't mean shit to me,” Kurloz rebukes, pushing his plate away, towards you, and you take it and throw it to the wall, food falling everywhere, pieces of fine ceramic following. 

“Fuck all of you,” you say, your nerves finally breaking down. You're not fit to do these kind of shit anymore. You've left the business to Feferi for a damn good reason. You anxiety is over the top. It's touching the goddamn stars. “I'm going to bed. I've got a gun under my pillow and there will be no warning shots if someone decides to bother me for anyfin at all!”

~*~

Sometimes you can't help but think that your live revolves just a little bit too much around Feferi and what she gets up to. 

It takes time, and so much care, to remember that she is not, under any definition of the word, a good person.  
She's so nice to you, so very kind, so protective. 

It takes too much, at times, and you let it be forgotten, forgiven, that she's a mob boss, that she kills people, has killed by the dozen, so much blood dripping from her hands. 

You've killed too, after all, and you are trying to get clean, here in your little corner of paradise that she has provided you. 

So you let it go, ignore all she does, all she has done. Ignore the blood of your mother sprayed on her face as she looked down at you, “Here we go, Vris,” she had said then, all smiles and sweetness, all rainbows, starlight and pearls and diamonds, “you're free.”

And you are, but your mother is dead, and you're not forced to work for her, for the so-called _business_. 

“Oh,” Feferi says, looking down at you even now, you sprawled on the couch, waiting awake and terrified, once again, for her life and her sanity and her safety. Every time she leaves your heart beats like a drum, your blood boils and you think… 

You think, if you had been free to choose, you would still be here, still remembering your mother's blood on her face, instead of being eyeballs deep in shit and crime. 

“You were waiting for me?” she asks you, pushing your legs out of the way and sitting down, her plump thigh hot against the curve of your ass. You plop your legs back, on top of her lap, and she caresses your chilled skin. 

“No,” you say, not caring if the lie is obvious. 

“Oh, Vris,” she croons, putting her hot, hot, hot hands all over your face, your hair, wherever she can reach. “You shouldn't have worried, I told you I was just going to Meenah's.” 

Listening to her voice makes you feel unreal. Makes everything that has happened these last few days irrelevant and fake, fake, fake and you cant take it. You want her to be mad pissed, you need it. 

Self destruction, someone has warned you about once.  
You say, fuck them, silent and loud in your mind. Fuck them and fuck Feferi's perfect grasp at you and your moods and your entire friendship thing. 

“As if you've never lied to me,” you spit out, and the words do their job and they sting her maybe stab her where it's soft. 

“As a matter of fact–” Fef is all haughty and posh, nobility in her blood, richness in her anger just as much as in her bank account. “I haven't. Ever. Not to you, you huge glubbing beach!”

She stays her hands where they are, one buried deep in your messy tangle of hair, on the back of your head. The other on your cheek. “What are doing?” she snaps, forcing your chin up with a sharp tug that hurts like hell. You yelp and you stare into her tired eyes. “What do you want, Vriska? Are you looking for a fight?” 

She waits for your answer and the silence might as well be enough, for someone that knows you as well as she does. “Why would I want to fight you, silly?” she whispers in the end, when she understands clear as fucking day that she won't get a verbal response from you. 

She lays down on top of your body, you are cold to your bones, and fucking lethargic, but you screech as she bends you too much and you scramble to get one of your legs against the back of the couch, the other falling to the ground. It looks untidy, you're messing up the space just by living in it. If what you're doing here can even be called living. 

“We've been hurting each other a lot lately, waven't we?” she says, all quiet and wounded and guilty. “I'm sorry. I will do betta. Meenah is fine, by the wave. You should call her.” She's slipping off, off to a land of bad dreams and fitful rest, and she will wake up tomorrow in a cold sweat, all trembling limbs, messy hair, rumpled clothes. And you will be here, holding her and supporting her and forgiving her for the blood she spills, constantly forgetting how she's not a good person. And she will love you for it in a way that you can't. 

And Terezi will come downstairs, bumping, purposefully, on every wall, stepping loud on every step, warning you both of her presence, giving you the time to get decent, to wipe the fears, the tears, the painful, tender affection from your faces.  
And it will be alright.


End file.
